Posts Tagged ‘eyewitness misidentification’

The psychotherapists who did the inadvertent memory hacking reported in the immediately preceding post where either Freudians or strongly of the Freudian persuasion. Freud thought that many mental problems were due to repressed memories of childhood abuse. Freud was correct in pointing to not only the existence but also the importance of the subconscious mind. The brain is constantly active, with only a small percentage of this activity reaching conscious awareness. But Freud’s repressed traumas are not buried there.

Freud was a brilliant creative individual, but he was no scientist. After 12 years of Freud being nominated for the Nobel Prize, the Nobel Prize Committee hired an expert to inquire into his work. The expert came to the conclusion that “Freud’s work was of no proven scientific value.”

So not only was Freud’s work of no scientific value, his influence on psychotherapists resulted in a nightmare of false accusations of childhood abuse. So be aware of this when there are reports of childhood sexual abuse (although it certainly does occur, children must be interviewed carefully to assure that false memories are not hacked into their brains). And should you find yourself in therapy and the therapist suggests probing your mind for repressed memories, you should seriously consider changing therapists..

There is no such thing as false memory “syndrome.” Although false memories are an omnipresent problem, there is no syndrome. In 2015, out of 325 cases where modern DNA testing proved innocence beyond reasonable doubt, 235 cases involved eyewitness misidentification. So false memories play an absolutely critical role in the imprisonment of the innocent. Human memory is fallible, people are overconfident not only in their own memories, but also in the memories of others. But this is do to normal memory processes. There is no “syndrome.”